In this episode of the New Books in Southeast Asia Podcast, Stéphan Huard discusses Calibrated Engagement: Chronicles of Local Politics in the Heartland of Myanmar (‎Berghahn Books, 2024), in which he takes a deep dive into the history and anthropology of village leadership in Myanmar’s central dry zone, or anya. Though the book was researched prior to the military coup of 2021, it offers material with which to make sense of both why and how people in the dry zone formed new armed groups along what Stéphen calls an internal frontier.

The book is available for download free of charge via the publisher’s website. This episode was produced by NYSEAN Partner, the New Books Network.

In an article for Mekong Independent, Gerald Flynn brings attention to the Karen Indigenous community in Northern Thailand, and the problems of air pollution they face as a result of maize cultivation.

Charles David Crumpton and Phone Pyae Soe report on an event by the Myanmar Advocacy Research Group that included a review of current evidence on the circumstances surrounding local governance and practical local experience, with participants reviewing the meaning and implications of this evidence.

In an article by The New York Times, Francesca Regalado writes about a recent museum exhibition in Thailand that criticized authoritarian governments in China, Myanmar and other countries. The curator, an artist from Myanmar, swiftly left the country from fear of being arrested and deported back to Myanmar. Chinese authorities wanted the museum to remove the names of artists from Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang, as matters in these areas were “purely China’s internal affairs.”